Viktor Yanukovych, the former, or deposed, or ousted president of Ukraine is alleged to have stolen $70 billion from his fellow Ukrainians and stashed it in offshore tax havens. Fellow tax haven users, including the owners of Western mass media corporations, have made sure that Yanukovych’ and their “secrets” are kept away from the consciousness of the citizens. Apple, Goggle, Microsoft, and Sysco Systems have hundreds of billions of dollars stashed offshore to avoid taxes.

The Bahamas, one of the premier tax haven jurisdictions of the over 70 around the world, has experienced big financial problems in their government. Instead of going after the people in the country who use tax avoidance schemes and have become very wealthy in the process, the government has proposed a regressive value-added tax (VAT) which hits the poor and middle class.

The large uranium producing country of Niger has decided to move against foreign mining companies to get a fairer percentage of royalties on uranium mined and shipped out of the nation. Zimbabwe, which is a big source of diamonds, has taken similar steps to recover some of the wealth from that natural resource that has been flowing out of Zimbabwe. In the Philippines, 19 mining and oil companies have been pressured to go public with their tax information.

Extraordinarily high levels of lobbying has been going on in Austria, Luxemburg, the United Kingdom and other nations to exclude trusts and offshore foundations from tax avoidance registries, thereby protecting their wealthiest clients. To the surprise of people in the broadcast, the International Monetary Fund has recently reported that countries which have been redistributing wealth strongly are experiencing a better quality of economic growth than countries that have maintained high levels of wealth inequality.

Niger has one of the richest deposits of uranium on Earth, but is also one of the poorest countries in the world. Ukraine has been looted by Ukrainian and Russian elites, a new group of looters has taken their place, and the threat of violence and war worries the people of the region. Financial records found around Viktor Yanukovych’ home after he fled to Russia read like a “who’s who” of the world’s tax havens. In recent years money stolen from Ukraine has been going to European tax havens, the British Virgin Islands, Lichtenstein, Austria, Panama, and many more.

Russian billionaires – 100 Russians own 35% of the country – park their money in the City of London in what is called a “special relationship”. Western powers cry loudly about Ukrainian and Russian corruption, while the kleptocrats have become fantastically wealthy because the West has facilitated the financial infrastructure that allowed their great wealth accumulation. Offshore tax havens are completely absent from Western sanctions against Yanukovych and Russian billionaires because “corruption travels in all directions”, and any knowledge of the tax-cheating activities of them opens up examination of the same cheating done by Westerners, Easterners, and any “ers” who have come to accumulate great wealth.

So, the billionaire and multi-billionaire bankers and industrialists from America, Russia, China, England, and all nations become motivated by extreme avarice to take very dangerous actions. These wealthiest people on Earth need to leave their avarice at the door, enter inside and get their act together. They need to erase the $ signs from their minds, and rely on spiritual and philosophical reason and wisdom to arrive at peaceful consensus which benefits the most people. They need to alter their perspectives from personal wealth and power accumulation to realize that their violent actions – both financial and military – are harming a great number of innocent human beings.

Trust funds, offshore foundations, tax-cheating billionaire elites need to stop harming and stealing from – and start helping – their fellow men, women, and children around this Earth.

Welcome

Peace

"The first peace, which is most important, is that which is found within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us."
BLACK ELK

Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms.. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.

This is a human rights blog in which I address issues of general concern freely and spontaneously. It is not an official blog nor is it issued in my function as United Nations Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order. It is a private blog intended to further an informal exchange of views in the democratic spirit of freedom of opinion and respect for the opinions of others.